As President Obama neglected to mention during his State of the Union address this week, 10 U.S. sailors were captured by Iran a few hours prior to Obama’s victory lap speech of all the good and wonderful things he’s blessed the world with. The soldiers were detained by the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s personal Navy, wherein they released a video of one of the soldier’s “apologizing” for transgressing Iran.

Since then, John Kerry “came to the rescue”, taking credit for the soldier’s release. He happily pointed to the “vastly improved relations” with Iran as the reason why everything went off so ducky. You see America, this is what happens when you acquiesce to a terrorist nation and justify its government. They release your citizens with only an embarrassing apology and it’s still years before we really have to care about their nuclear empowerment!

Unfortunately for the official narrative, not every expert is toeing the line. Yesterday, on Fox’s American Newsroom, retired Navy Captain and Fox News analyst, John Nash questioned the Sate Department’s logic in declaring this incident such a glorious victory.

“This was done intentionally and it was done to further embarrass the United States,” said Captain Nash. “And to send the clear message to the Gulf Arabs,” he continued. “If the Americans won’t stand up for themselves, they’re certainly not going to stand up for you.” Captain Nash went on to detail how the Iranian Navy treated the two adrift American boats more like drug runners caught making a sprint for Key West. Iran essentially ignored military protocol from the first minute.

Our government’s narrative might be comforting to those who desperately want to convince themselves that the world can only get safer if we give criminals what they want. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the combined shock of the soldier’s apology – whether coerced by the Iranians or ordered by our leaders- with President Obama’s confusing exclusion of any statements in defense in his SOTU mere hours later, paints America as–shall we say- the lower bunk in this relationship.

Admittedly, Captain Nash is conjecturing when he questions whether the soldier was coerced or whether he went through the proper training, but I’m not sure how America comes out smelling like roses in any scenario. If the sailor was coerced, where are the State Department’s accusations towards Iran? If we’re all supposed to be buddy buddy now, how is this –or any part of this capture- the actions of an ally? If our solider was not given the proper training –maybe because now Iran is officially “good” and the President wouldn’t want to justify training that would suggest mistrust – how can that be considered responsible leadership when reality clearly differs? And of course, how can President Obama’s failure to represent the captured soldiers during his address to America, in what can only be read as “intentional”, possibly be justified?

Actually, Iran’s timing of our soldier’s capture – hours before Obama’s final SOTU- sounds more like a brilliantly opportunistic game of chicken. One that Iran was confident it would win because they know Obama would never risk the fragile perception of his legacy by calling out said legacy’s chief benefactors – after the President’s own ego, that is. He would rather win the temporary PR game in America and in doing so give Iran one final gift: assurance that we won’t defy them in the Middle East. If we won’t defend our own soldiers, what chance does Israel have?